Saturday, November 13, 2010

Reports of rain/Thunderstorms today (Saturday) evening received from many cities of Maharashtra. Definite Reports of thunderstorms have come in from Pune, Nasik, Kopergaon, Nagpur, Wardha, Satara, Karjat and Lonavala.

The currently strong La Nina condition in the Equatorial East Pacific would continue to grow and reach peak strength over the next few months, according to Japanese researchers.

The Climate Variation Predictability and Applicability Research Programme at the Tokyo-based Research Institute for Global Change (RIGC) has maintained the outlook for La Nina to last long and persist until early 2012.

COLDER WINTER

A La Nina event, in which warming anomaly shifts to the West Pacific, has traditionally favoured a good Indian monsoon as evidenced in the 2010 season.

According to Dr Jing-Jia Luo, Senior Scientist at the RIGC, the strong La Nina would bring colder surface air temperatures over many parts of the globe during this winter and the following spring.

Exceptions are the Northern Eurasian continent and Southeast North America where the odds favour a warmer-than-normal winter.

Above-normal precipitation could be expected to occur in South Africa, Australia, Northeast Brazil and South Asia (where India falls).

Cold and stormy weather might occur over Southeast China, along the Japan Sea and its coastal regions as well as northern parts of North America in early 2011.

EASTERLY WAVE

Meanwhile, back home, it emerges that the weather during the next week would be mostly dictated by an easterly wave across the Bay of Bengal.

Easterly waves travels along a straight line, and is the southerly counterparts of western disturbances that frequent the country's northern latitudes.

These waves carry their ‘payload' upfront and are fleet-footed in nature, often morphing into low-pressure areas and even cyclones.

International models, too, have indicated the straight line to the west for a disturbance that is currently located over the Andaman Sea.

‘Low's, depressions and cyclones take a trademark west-northwest track in the Bay of Bengal and travel along a southeast to northwest incline.

RAINS FORECAST

On Friday, an India Meteorological Department outlook for early next week said that the easterly wave will cause fairly widespread rainfall activity over Peninsular India with isolated heavy falls over coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

The International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society at Columbia University, however, said that maximum impact would be felt over southern parts of Sri Lanka.

The rest of Sri Lanka, South Kerala and adjoining South Tamil Nadu and the rest of Peninsular India would also be battered by rainfall of varying intensity during the next week, the IRI outlook said.

Meanwhile, the well-marked ‘low' over Northeast Arabian Sea washed over along the Gujarat coast and weakened into a ‘low' on Friday.

The resultant moisture incursion is still kicking up a lot of non-seasonal rain over Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

SURPLUS RAINS

The IRI estimated that up to 280 per cent above the normal rain would have fallen over the region during this period.

It would be above 60 to 40 per cent over Central India and above 20 to 40 per cent over the West Peninsula.

The IMD said in an update on Friday that widespread rainfall was reported from South Peninsular India during the 24 hours ending in the morning.

It was fairly widespread over Coastal Karnataka, Konkan, Goa, Saurashtra, Kutch, East Rajasthan and Central India.

Insat imagery showed the presence of convective (rain-bearing) clouds over parts of Telangana, South Chhattisgarh, South Orissa, Northeast and Southeast Arabian Sea, Southeast Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

Seems the clouding of "erstwhile remnant of erstwhile Jal" is persistant and far too sticky, on the western front. Now, it has crept upto Delhi region, and Delhi is receiving rains from 11.a.m. today. Some areas have measured upto 18 mms in 90 minutes.

There goes any hopes of winter recovering next few days in Delhi !Minimum today 18c (+6).